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All posts for the month July, 2012

Ok, since I haven’t done one in a month or more, maybe I should call this word of the month? But I don’t have a word. What I have is a phrase. WTF? I’m intrigued with the phrase because we use it publicly all the time when we don’t want to swear…but everyone knows it’s a swear…who are we fooling? It’s like when the folks on Battlestar Galactica say Frack to get around the TV censors (Sorry BSG if I just busted you and no one in the censorship bureau – or whoever bans words on TV – had figured that out yet. But I realized how silly it is for me to use WTF the other day when relating (to a dear friend who understands how crazy I am, but loves me anyway) a conversation I had with the universe.

Universe: Hello Laura, this week’s gift is ten pounds it will take you three months to loose.

Me: Thanks for the offer, but I don’t really want them. Could you make it rain kittens? But like a soft rain so the kittens don’t die or hurt anyone when they hit? Maybe a low-gravity kitten rain?

Universe: No kitten-rain is out. I do have some frogs on special.

Me: Never mind, but about these ten pounds –

Universe: That’s a done deal. But I know what will help. Here is a healthy helping of irrational emotion.

Me: How does that help?

Universe: It lets you know the weight gain isn’t a punishment, its just part of your natural cycle.

Me: What the Frack? (I’m no longer able to control myself and just say WTF politely pretending it might mean something other than Frack – just in case anyone who bans words on TV is reading, I wont use that other word.) What kind of fracked-up natural system involves random weight gain, hormones that might get me committed and ends in a week long cramped abdomen? I want to speak to management!

Universe: Don’t be rude or I won’t make it rain frogs.

By the way, I am totally going to keep saying WTF, but from now on I’m going to actually mean Frack. But not the explicative…more like the geological term…has something to do with mining and cracking rock I think…any hydrology…probably. (I’m totally not a rock scientist.)

Writing Exercise:

Verbs add punch to your writing. They move your characters. They add tension with their action. But they can also provide a great way to describe things, creating memorable sentences and draw the scene for your reader. For example:

Piles of clothes huddled in the corners.

His body draped across the chesterfield.

She thrust her idea forward, but Peter parried the blow.

Ok, these may be rather dramatic examples, but they illustrate a point. The sentences use verbs in an unexpected way, and they do so without adjectives. Pick up one of your favorite books and open it randomly to a page. Read the page and mark all of the verbs. How are they used? Did you notice them or did they melt into the background of the story? Did the author use adjectives with the verbs or did he let them stand alone? Once you’re done, spend ten minutes writing sentences that make creative and unexpected use of verbs. If part-way through the exercise one of the sentences inspires you to write, take up the challenge.

Do you have a writing community? In the last year I have actively perused a writing community, to help me progress as a writer and keep myself motivated.

At the moment I attend two writing groups. In one group we sit and read work aloud, then give and receive constructive (mostly) criticism. In my other group (that I sadly meet with less often) we sit as a group, do a meditation exercise and then write independently for an hour, sharing our work at the end. I’m also working with a writing partner on a novel project.

I used to think of writing as a solitary pursuit, but now I know that writing is just another extension of my desire to connect to people. I like to share my work (even though doing so often makes me feel like I might throw up.) I also like to hear about the challenges and triumphs of other writers (I am not alone!). Plus I discovered there are benefits to showing your work to others:

Developing bravery and public reading skills. The first time I read in public my hands shook and I shot through the piece in record time. I’m sure no one heard me properly and I nearly threw up. But now I can read at a reasonable pace with only minor jitters. Practice makes perfect may not have manifested yet, but practice definitely is making me better, and since I’m going to be famous one day and asked to read in public, so why not start now?

Getting feedback on plot and story. I get much to close to my work to really know when there is a plot hole. After all, more happens in the book than what ends up on the page, and I sometimes assume the reader will know what is in my head…It helps to have someone who doesn’t know the whole story read your work and tell you when things have gone sideways.

Proofreading and copy editing help. Just like I get too close to my work to notice plot holes. I also get too close to notice stupid spelling and grammar mistakes. After the fifth time I read a sentence I have no idea what it really says on the paper. In my mind the sentence says what I think it says, and I will pass right over over duplicated words and speelingn mistakes.

Ego boost. (Sounds like an energy drink doesn’t it?) Believe it or not, most people I have met are gentle with their criticism and generous with their praise when I read…not bad for the ego.

Writing Exercise:

What scares you about writing? Is it writer’s block? Are you worried about sharing your ideas? The risk or criticism or rejection? Terror of public speaking? Whatever it is, this fear can be a gold mine for story. Think about your fear objectively. What is the root cause of the fear? How do you deal with the fear? Have you seen others deal with fear in different ways? Now create a character who shares your fear and throw them into this terrible situation. Whatever can go wrong does. Whatever might make it worse happens. Spend twenty minutes writing about a fearful writing experience.

Once you have a piece, go forth and find a writing community. It could be an online forum, a community writing community, or just a friend who likes to write. Be brave and seek out the company of other creative folks and then share your short piece of writing. I guarantee whatever happens it wont be as bad as what happened to your character…

In the past it was perfectly acceptable (to some segments of society if not to the accosted woman) to ogle pretty women. See them as having little value beyond their lovely appearance, and make lewd comments. But when a man does that today, we gasp in shock. “How dare they?” Those men are wrong thinkers.

“Of course.” You say, indigent that I would even bring the topic up.

Well, I’m pretty sure that years from now people will be using me as an example of the wrong-thinking female. I ogle. I watch TV for the abbidy-pec-pec (referring to really ripped chests in-case this goes over anyone’s head) good time that many of today’s male leads…well lead with. The other day I had a conversation at work (which might get me in trouble the jury is still out) that illustrated the point to me…maybe I need to stop my wrong-thinking ogling behavior…but I’m only human.

Colleague: Mmmm, David Bechkam is coming to Vancouver, wanna get tickets?
Me: Um, Yah.
Male Colleague (MC): Good luck with that.
Colleague: Why?
Me: Probably sold out.
MC: What is it with that guy anyway?
Me: Bechkam? Have you seen him?
MC: Yes.
Me: Oh, right, you’re a guy. <sitting up and looking proper, hoping I wont get busted for this conversation at work> He is very physically attractive.
MC: But wouldn’t you find his voice –
Me: Why would I let him talk?
Colleague: He’s not for talking.
Me: He married a Spice Girl.
MC: Random.
Me: And she gave up her career for him. That’s how good he is. Like that lady who gave up everything to become the Princess of Monaco.
MC: You mean Grace Kelly?
Me: Yah, she was an actress right? Because who wouldn’t want to be a princess?
MC: Why play a princess, when I can be one in real life?
Me: When I watched “A Prince and Me” I asked Andre at the end if he was secretly a Prince, and told him I promised not to be mad if he told me the truth.
MC: What?
Me: But he said he wasn’t and I said, that’s exactly what a secret prince would say.
MC: I don’t even know what to say to that.
Me: Exactly.
Colleague: He’s coming again in September.
Me: I’m in.

I am at this moment trying to decide if my wrong-thinking is a habit I should try to purge…or if perhaps I can let it slide. I mean every generation needs to have examples of bad behavior, or how will the next feel superior? No? Ok, fine, I’ll try to be better. Does it make it better if I never say those things in front of the object of my ogling?

Writing Exercise:

I like to make characters move. How a character moves, their speed, their choice of locomotion, their grace or lack thereof all give me the opportunity to provide information to the reader. For example if a car explodes, the words I choose to describe a character at the scene can revel their personalities as well as their relationship to the explosion. For example, what would you think if I used any of the following? Ducked. Scurried. Stumbled. Cringed. Ran. Skipped. Each word implies a different reaction and relationship. But more than simple single words to describe motion, we can expand a scene to describe the complexities of motion. We can describe how each body part moves. We can use metaphor and simile to imply different types of motion. We can use emotion to more fully describe a motion. (Nervous fidgets. Guilty glances…)

Choose a character and a scene. If you like you can borrow the car explosion, or use something less dramatic. Then use how your character moves to tell your reader something about your character. Don’t revel the facts with words, but with a description of motion.

Have you ever sat staring at blank page or computer screen not knowing what to write? Or are you like me and when you get intimidated you simply find ways to avoid your physical writing space, so the blank page won’t stare at you. (Stupid judging blank page. Ha, my vegetable drawer needs cleaning, and if my soups aren’t in alphabetical order then I really don’t have time to write…right?)

State of mind is critical to my writing process. Sometimes the writing feeling comes over me and I just have to sit down and create. (Thank you gods of writing wherever you are!) But when that doesn’t happen I have to get myself prepared. I make a place inside myself for me to write. How? Well first I clear my mind of all the voices telling me: “You can’t do this.” “No one will read it anyway.” “Don’t you have something more important to do?” And I replace those voices with a firm inner voice of my own. “This makes you happy.” Then I try to forget where I am. I am no longer in my living room or a coffee shop, I’m in a special place where the only thing that matter is my writing. (I fight against feeling selfish every time.)

When I get together with my writing group we share a meditation before writing. I won’t relate the whole thing, but in short we do some deep breathing, send messages to ourselves that the time before us is for writing and that we should be open to creativity. Then we each take a moment to imagine that we are in a special place for writing, where creativity flows and nothing else matters. My own personal space is on a large rock in a river. The rock is warm and shaped perfectly for my body to sit and write. The river is surrounded by a deep forest far away from any of life’s problems.

I think I’ll take a trip right now.

Writing Exercise:

Symbols are powerful. They can inspire, direct, identify and suggest meaning. In writing they can be used to identify something about a character. For example we would expect different behaviors from a character wearing a delicate cross than from one with a tattoo of a peace sign, though to some they can carry similar meanings. Symbols can also be used as tools of foreshadowing. Choose a symbol and brainstorm about that symbol’s meaning. Would it mean that same thing to everyone, or could its meaning change with the perspective of the viewer. Now give that symbol to a character and spend twenty minutes exploring your character’s relationship to that symbol.

If you need help getting started, consider all the different ways a symbol could be important to someone. Is it a cherished memory? Is it an obsession? Does it represent faith? Does it tell the world something about them (like a super hero?). Does the image haunt them? Free your imagination and welcome symbols into your writing.

Happy Writing.

NB. Symbols are all around us. If you are having a hard time finding a symbol to write about broaden you definition. Companies make use of them in their logos. Tattoo artist can tell you the deeper meaning of almost any image, and ancient cultures have prescribed meaning to animals and shapes since we began painting images on cave walls.

Last night we had an Olive Sit at my house. Unfamiliar with the term? So was I until my home was volunteered as the host location. Basically an Olive Sit (as it was not-so-fully described to me) involves a bunch of friends descending on one house, each bringing a different type of olive to share. The goal of the event is to experience and enjoy different types of olives…The event is also a fantastic excuse to drink wine and have a great time.

Sounds great right? Well, yes, except for one problem. I detest olives.

“But you had an olive party.” You say.

“Uh-huh.” I answer.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well you can’t let a little think like sense get in the way of a good time.”

(“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?” – Lewis Carroll. I love Alice in Wonderland.)

I really did think that if I tried enough olives I would find one I liked. I was wrong, wrong wrong…or I haven’t tried enough olives yet. But I’m leaning towards I was wrong. There was grimacing. There was gagging, and while I tried one of every olive present at the party, I couldn’t swallow most of them, and those that did go down gave me a tummy ache. In good news it was the first party in a long time that I didn’t feel tempted to over-eat, so the scale is happy with me today. In other good news it was an educational experience.

I learned I still detest olives.

I learned that just because they sell it near the olives in a grocery store, doesn’t mean it is similar to an olive (who knew?).

I learned that my friends find it wildly amusing to see me try to eat something I hate. (They are now planning a Shellfish Sit to test my limits…I plan to be sick that day.)

Writing Exercise:

Everyone has a food or beverage they just hate. Could be Brussels sprouts, black licorice or olives, but everyone hates something. What would happen if you had to eat that item? Say you were lost on a desert island with nothing but an olive tree to sustain you (My own personal hell; I might actually die.). Or maybe you just won Ms. Olive Fest 2012, and it would ruin your beauty contest career for your secret loathing of olives to be revealed. What could you do to get around your hatred? Would you eat tiny bits of them at a time hoping to build up a tolerance? Develop some advanced food-ditching techniques? Would you be outed eventually?

Choose an item you hate and spend thirty minutes exploring your hatred and how you would get around it…if the need arose.

Yesterday was a headache day. A four-Tylenol, push-through-it, kind of day. And the worst part is that I can’t even wish it away because it was also a very productive day both at work and in my writing. When I sat down to write the ideas just flowed onto the page. It makes me wonder if the same cruel creator who put reproduction next to emotions in our brain (thanks loads by the way) also chose to put creativity next to pain…

When I write I usually know what I want to happen at the beginning and end of a chapter, but not really how the characters are going to get me from point a to point b. Well yesterday my characters (driven by brain-pain I’m sure) took me on an adventure that not only got me from point a to point b, but showed me how I’m going to solve a plot stumbling-block I was facing. The characters just pointed down a path and shouted run!

Anyway, long story short, the writing went really well. I pounded out a couple of thousand (brilliant) words for my latest novel (I’m calling it Broken Dreams right now) in an hour and a half. The most exciting part of this productive burst is it puts me only two chapters away from the first Pinch Point in the novel. I’m in spitting distance of the half-way point; so cool!

Just to prove creativity causes pain…or the other way around, I thought I would share a conversation I had with my boss yesterday. Quick question…Is it still a conversation if the other person’s contributions are just strange looks and muffled laughs?

(NB. I have a very understanding boss. He never judges me…out loud. Even when I say crazy things at work. My director does, but he’s laughing at the time he judges so I think my career is safe. Or I have a reputation for crazy. Maybe both.)

Me: The right side of my head feels like it’s going to fall off.

Boss: I hope it doesn’t.

Me: It probably wont, it never has before, but today it feels like a real possibility. I bet it hurts because I use it too much. So today I’m going to use the left side of my brain instead. The left side is for rationality.

Boss: <weird questioning look>

Me: It’s the atrophied side of my brain. Not all muscly from use. I hate that over-muscled look.

Me: I hope my left brain doesn’t get sore now. Its not used to exercise; totally the couch potato part of my brain.

Boss: <failing to hold a straight face> I hope you don’t get sore.

Me: Me too. Hello Friday.

Writing Exercise:

Words have literal meaning and meaning that is given to them over time by cultural associations. Using these words in writing allows us to subtly (hopefully) set the emotional and physical stage for our readers. Words can also take the reader down a word-association tree of thought, helping us guide the reader to think of one thing while we are saying another.

(I often read a poem twice, the first time to enjoy the rythem of the words and their surface meaning and the second time to follow the word association paths that the poem leads me down.)

Reading and writing this way may not come naturally, but it is a skill you can develop by consciously thinking of words and their associations. Start with the word “dark”. Think about the word. Do a mind map. What associations do you have with this word? Write a paragraph where you use the word “dark” to describe something unexpected (poem or pros, your choice). Now turn it around and choose a setting where you want to imply the word “dark” using the associations you developed in the first half of this exercise.

If you are having trouble, read below for a simple example of this exercise using the word “light”.

Happy Writing.

Exercise Example:

Light

Bright

Clear

Weightless

Thin

Knowledge

Peace

Safe

Growth

Power

Warmth

Burn

Paragraph using the word light to imply three things. (Visual light, growth, weightlessness of spirit.)

Coloured leaves flutter to the earth. Playing with the light; moving pictures form on limbs that reach for the heavens. You too stand in the light. Arms raised. Seeking. Free.

Paragraph using the ideas I had behind light, to visual light a personality.

Gentle and warm you caresses my skin. Teasing a smile from my lips as you come and go playing childish games with weightless fellows.

Where do you write? Do you create in a notebook on the edge of your kitchen counter, or on a computer in a quiet corner? Do you write at home, or do you seek out a coffee shop, library or other public space? I usually write in my living room, or a coffee shop, feeling a deep jealousy of those who have already carved out the perfect space for their writing. I also spend time chanting my personal mantra “I will not run away from home to live in the forest and write.” (Running away to the forest is my go-to solution for bad days…its not just for manifesto-writing nut jobs anymore!)

But instead of in my living room or a coffee shop, this week inspiration struck while I was driving. Normally I write pros, and inspiration while driving would be impossible to capture. But this time, the gods of inspiration surprised me with a serenade. The words popping into my mind did so in the short bursts of verse and chorus. So, while driving was an inconvenient time to be inspired, capturing the moment was as easy as pulling over and scribbling in my notebook and singing into my cell phone’s recording device every few blocks.

Then, once I got home, I sat down and pieced the sections together until they made sense. And while the song may not be a thing of genius (being the first one I ever completed), I was excited by this new writing experience, and I resolved to stop thinking bitter jealous thoughts about people with writing retreats. (For now.)

Writing Exercise:

While inspiration can strike anywhere, I’m a big believer in carving out a space to be creative, so try making yourself a writing station. Pick a place in your home and set it up with everything you need to be your creative self, and let your inspiration flow.

Supply your writing station with the tools of your trade – If you write in a notepad with a pen, make sure your space always has a pad and pen ready for your use. If you use a computer, make sure your space has a power outlet, and a flat surface to balance your machine on.

Light the space well for writing – Even though most writers suffer for the art, squinting your way to a headache isn’t productive.

Include inspiration pieces – Whether writing about a historical figure, a magical kingdom or the sociopath next door, I usually have a few “things” nearby that inspire that story. A photograph, a piece of music, a bloody knife (ok maybe not the knife), but you get the picture, “things” can be powerful talismans for our inspiration.

Can’t carve out a permenant space for your writing? Good news, your station can be portable. Get a sturdy Rubbermaid box and fill it with everything you need. Then when inspiration strikes, or your designated writing time comes around, pull out your box and get writing.

Once you have your wriring space set up, reward yourself with twenty minutes of writing.